In his introduction to Superman: Secret Identity, Kurt Busiek writes that in a series, you can wander around, explore side-alleys, look at the same situation from different angles, indulge in slow development . . .until youve exhausted what you can do with [the characters] or the audience has abandoned you. With Frank Ironwine, Warren Ellis has boldly, if unusually, attempted to set down in one issue a whole series of character and situation explorations, to build a version of the archetypal detective by boiling him down to the essentials and shooting him through with eccentricity. His success is evidenced by the sensation one has on a second reading of this comic that surely, surely this isnt the first issue. Read Full Review